Dark Angel Movie Madness

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See James Cameron's TV show in motion. It's better than you think.

By Douglass C. Perry

I never watched James Cameron's Dark Angel. I should have known that not wanting to watch a hot chick kicking butt meant I was getting old. My simple TV schedule consists of Monday Night Football and the Sunday night combo hits of Futurama, The Simpsons and the once-amusing The X-Files. But Dark Angel? Nah. Some Buffy fans made the transition to it, while others protested. It doesn't matter all that much now because the show's been cancelled, which is a shame. But now I wish I had watched a little bit of it because Sierra Studios and developer Radical Games are bringing it to PS2 and Xbox.

Dark Angel is designed very much like a good, fun version of that old Radical developed game, Jackie Chan's Stuntmaster, which Midway published on PlayStation in April 2000. And it feels a bit like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, too. Offering 10 large missions, each with two to four submissions for a total of 26 in all, and three styles of gameplay -- straight up action, stealth infiltration, and puzzle solving -- James Cameron's Dark Angel is far better than the TV garbage games we've come to loath in the past. In fact, it surpasses that classification to "good, kick-butting fun," to be quite honest.

The very first level offers action, stealth and a sense of humor right off the bat. Shown from a third-person perspective, Dark Angel starts off with the Max, the lead character, in an alleyway. She can sneak up on the enemy, pull off a Super Dash move, or simply clobber him over the head, but the stealth move is most rewarding. Using the stealth button she can sneak up and strangle an enemy, knocking him out for good in one shot. By using the face buttons on the PS2 (the system we played this on) Max can jump, kick and hit enemies, or she can mix them up for combinations. At random times, players pull off Matrix-style moves where time slows down and she flips into the air like a spinning seal, thwapping enemies with flying scissor kicks, a flurry of helicopter arms, or a jump-style attack -- all of which occur seamlessly across the TV screen.

The game is still very early, or at least the build we played was early. But it already holds visual promise. Jessica Alba's re-creation is quite extensive. Her smooth face and shapely body are well modeled and perhaps simply textured, but overall she looks attractive, dressed in tight-fitting pants, a long-sleeve shirt, and wearing a smallish purse-like backpack. I'm not sure but I think she probably changes out a few times throughout the game.

While the game moves very fast 85% of the time, there is some slowdown here and there, and the camera still needs a lot of work. It gets stuck on various objects and sometimes gets hidden behind an object altogether. But it least it's a third-person perspective camera with a manual function that enables you to re-arrange its position. And, again, the game is early, so these things are sure to get worked out.

The only thing that continually bugged me was that whenever I jumped near a ladder, while in a fight, I would jump up it by mistake. The game is designed so that whenever you're near a ladder and Max jumps, she'll immediately jump up it. Naturally, it's a just a little annoying if that's not what you want to do.

Max can crouch, cling and sneak quietly across a wall with her back to it, like Solid Snake, or do things like pull off back flips off a wall. She runs toward a wall and by pressing jump and then jump again, she hits it running and pulls off a clean high backflip over her enemies heads, repositioning her for a better strategic attack. I spent a good five minutes just jumping off walls and objects just for kicks, and it works great.

The game is a little deceptive. It seems like a simple TV re-hash with some action and some nice cutscenes at first. But no, this game is built for combat. Max can do deceptive things like whistle, which distracts guards or draws them away from the pack, so she can sneak up on them with a stealth attack and knock them out. Players change the camera with the right analog, or they can switch into first-person mode using L1. She can use her "super sight" to see long distances, her vision working just like a sniper rifle. She can perform dashes, too, by pressing down L3.

The controls are easy to learn. Square is punch, X is kick, Circle is jump, and L3 is Super Dash. Triangle enables Max to grapple enemies or wall sneak. When being attacked Max can pull off an impressive range of grappling moves such as overhead flips to wall throws, and more. These are especially fun to perform, because they send the enemy flying (something I always like to see), and when they land, they stay down for a few seconds (another thing I always like to see). Enemy AI decent, too. When an enemy is being attacked, others quickly come running to his aid, with very little delay time. When enemies are knocked down, they get back up using get-up attacks, such as scissor kicks and the like, preventing the kind of bully behavior we all like to apply in our games. They cluster and they put up some resistance, too.

The game features a slew of interactive backgrounds, which appear in all forms. There are the standard crates and barrels, but there are also breaking glass and interactive garbage cans. Ah yeah, everybody loves the interactive garbage cans. Using the grapple move, players can flip and throw enemies through the air into these giant garbage bins, after which the lids slam down on them, for a little touch of Hollywood love.

Lastly, Max has a Rage Meter. The meter enables her to clear out a gang of enemies with a single attack. By attacking enemies, Max is able to build up the meter. Once filled, by pressing either punch or kick and then holding and keeping the button down, she unleashes a furious attack that takes out anyone in the radius of about seven to 10 feet. It's a crowd clearer and a crowd pleaser.

Although most of this was reported at ECTS 2002, I wanted to let people know just how inviting Radical's game actually is with another update. James Cameron's Dark Angel is a surprise hidden in TV clothing, and it's going to be great fun for fans of the show but also an enjoyable romp for pure videogame fans who couldn't care less about the show. In other words, for people like me.